pre-
1769
|
Kummeyay Indians inhabit numerous
villages scattered throughout the San Diego region including Mission
Valley and Florida/Switzer Canyon in Balboa Park.
|
1769
|
Father
Junipero
Serra arrives to found Mission San Diego de
Alcala on westernmost edge of San Diego mesa. The San Diego
mission is the first of what will become a chain of twenty-one
Spanish missions
extending northward along the California coast. The Spanish introduce
herds of domestic cattle, sheep and horses which graze on the
surrounding mesas. |
1774
|
Trading the strategic advantage of the
high ground overlooking both coastal San Diego and Mission Valley for a
more
reliable water supply the Spanish mission relocates six miles inland (its present site)
along the
San Diego River near the native village of Nipaguay.
|
The Spanish military,
under the local command of the Presidio of Monterey, take possession
and expand the stockade on the newly designated Presidio Hill.
|
|
1800
|
The largest local
earthquake of recent history (Richter=6.5) rocks San Diego.
|
1812
|
An earthquake in the Santa Barbara Channel
(Richter=7.0) shakes California Alta and destroys San Diego Mission
Church.
|
1813
|
Hoping to improve agriculture yields,
the Franciscan missionaries organize construction of the first
water engineering project on the west coast of the United States. The first dam
to cross the San Diego River is sited in present day Mission Trails Regional
Park.
|
1816
|
After three years of construction, the first
western water project is complete and water arrives Mission
San Diego de Alcala via an aqueduct routed through eastern
Mission
Valley.
|
1821
|
Mexicans gain political independence from Spain.
Buildings begin to be constructed below Presidio Hill, adjacent to the
San Diego River at the mouth of Mission Valley. This geographic locus
for
local residents and travelers eventually becomes the new center of
development of San Diego.
|
1825
|
Soldiers from the Presidio establish houses and
sleeping quarters outside the garrison.
|
1826
|
Jedediah
Smith journeys across the arid southwest to lead
the first American party to arrive overland in San Diego. The Governor
of San Diego, Jose Maria Echeandia, is not welcoming and orders them to
leave immediately.
|
1835
|
The Presidio is abandoned by the
Mexican military and the site begins to fall to ruin. Photo
of Presidio Hill (1872) showing ruins of fortifications at upper left.
|
1846
|
United States declares war on Mexico, and the
Marines occupy San Diego on July 29. Fortifications on
Presidio
Hill are rebuilt and named Fort Stockton by Admiral
Robert F. Stockton. |
1850
|
California is granted statehood. City
of San Diego is incorporated and holds its first election establishing a government with a Common Council and an
elected mayor. San Diego’s first mayor is Joshua
Bean,
brother of the famous Judge Roy Bean. The following year the San Diego Herald publishes its first edition.
|
1865
|
First public
school house opens in San Diego with Mary
Chase
Walker as its first teacher. She receives a salary of $65/month.
After eleven
months she quits teaching and marries Ephraim
Morse,
the president of the school board.
|
1868
|
Ephraim Morse presents a resolution to the Board
of Trustees of San Diego that land be set aside for a city park. Morse,
Thomas Bush and Alonzo Horton select the land north of downtown. Two
years
later, San Diego becomes the first city west of the Mississippi to set
aside
land for an urban park. This 1,440-acre tract becomes the site for City
Park, now Balboa Park.
|
| 1870 |
Mary Kearney obtains a deed from the city for land which
will become eventually become Hillcrest. |
| 1871 |
C.
D. Arnold and D.
Choate, two real estate developers, obtain the property from Mary
Kearney. George Hill, a wealthy railroad tycoon purchases the
land. |
1873
|
H.M. Covert and Jacob Gruendike initiate first
major waterworks since mission days — forming the city’s first water
company (San Diego Water Company) on January 20. Wells drilled in Pound
Canyon near the site of present Cabrillo Bridge provide first reliable
water supply for
the city. Two reservoirs are constructed on mesas bordering canyon with
a total capacity of 170,000 gallons.
|
1875
|
Increasing demands for water lead San Diego
Water Company to tap water from wells in Mission Valley and the San
Diego River. A pumping station is built in Mission Valley at the mouth
of Palm Canyon (just east of Presidio Hill). A tunnel running up from
Mission Valley to
the mesa top (near the current UCSD Medical Center) carried water to
University Avenue from where it flowed downhill across the empty mesa
into a new reservoir at Fifth and Hawthorn. Additional pumps supplied a
reservoir
in University Heights which also fed into downtown’s water supply.
|
1880
|
Fifth Street is the first street
to be extended uptown onto San Diego Mesa.
|
1884
|
Kate
Sessions arrives from
the San Francisco Bay area to teach at Russ School. The next year she
begins
her nursery business.
|
1885
|
The first electric streetlights
are installed in San Diego. Fifth Street paved north to
Ivy.
|
| 1886 |
Elisha
S. Babcock and Hampton L. Story launch the San Diego Streetcar
Company, the city’s
first public transit system. The streetcars are limited to downtown,
consisting of cars
pulled by horses and mules. |
| 1887 |
Electric Rapid Transit Company installs
recently invented electric powered streetcars, connecting downtown and
Old Town along Kettner Boulevard.
|
Thomas T. Crittenden files a deed for
Crittenden’s Addition one of the first subdivisions north of City Park
(bounded by Robinson, Upas, Sixth Avenue and Highway 163). A peaceful
enclave ever since, the
3500 block of Seventh Avenue in Crittenden’s Addition contains well
preserved historic residences from many of the region’s important
architects including Irving Gill, William Hebbard, Frank Mead and
Richard Requa.
|
University Heights is founded by the
College Hill Land Association.
|
|
| 1888 |
| Public transportation arrives in uptown
when the Park Belt Motor Road opens a ten-mile loop connecting
downtown,
Hillcrest (along Fifth Avenue) University Heights and Balboa Park (then
City Park). Also known as the University Heights Motor Road, the
cars
were pulled by a small steam-powered engine. |
| Alonzo
Erastus
Horton opens Horton’s Addition (an area north of downtown, bounded
by Ash Street on the south, City Park on the east, Walnut Street on the
north and present-day Interstate 5 on the west) and begins a major
development. More than 100
new homes are built, with many other people residing in hotels and
boarding
houses. |
|
1889
|
Brooke’s Addition is deeded (bounded by Second,
Sixth, Robinson and Brookes). The city covers over the abandoned Pound
Canyon well, citing “danger” as the reason.
|
| 1890 |
San Diego Cable Railway Company opens a
4.7-mile cable car line up Fourth Avenue, along University and then
north on Normal Street and Park Boulevard to Adams Avenue. The
51,000-foot cable is driven by two coal-fired steam engines located at
a
power plant at Fourth and Spruce.
|
Deed for Nutt’s Addition is recorded
(bounded by Second, Sixth, Robinson and Brookes).
|
|
1891
|
| The San Diego Cable Railway Company ceases
to operate and falls into bankruptcy. One owner vanishes with $200,000
while the other commits suicide in face of bank fraud charges. |
| Wyatt Earp invests in Hillcrest real
estate, purchasing the southwest corner of Fifth and University. In
addition to
investing in saloons and gambling halls, Earp is rumored to have
operated
a brothel at this site. |
|
1894
|
Bad times encourage Alonzo Horton to sell his
half-block
Horton Plaza park to the city for $10,000, stipulating that it must
remain a park forever. Under the agreement, the city agrees to pay
Horton $100 a month with no interest and no down payment. In the event
of Horton’s death, the city would acquire the property outright. The
city fathers underestimated Horton’s endurance. In April 1903,
89-year-old Horton cashes his final
check — a total of over $16,000. Housing development begins
north
of Walnut Street.
|
|
1895
|
Thirty-three women form the Wednesday
Club, a civic literary group, and elect Lydia Horton (Alonzo’s
wife) president. Four years later when steel baron Andrew Carnegie
donates money for small town libraries throughout the country, the
club sponsors fundraisers and obtain
the first Carnegie Library built west of the Mississippi. Later the
club
raised funds for the museums in Balboa Park.
|
|
1896
|
The Citizen’s Traction company begins to serve
uptown on the newly electrified route of the former cable road. The
cable cars are fitted with electric motors and reach a top speed of
twenty-five mph. Trolley lines through uptown saw major extensions in
1897 and 1904.
|
1897
|
State
Normal School, the beginning of what is now San Diego State
University, is
founded for the training of elementary school teachers. The seven
faculty
and ninety-one students of the first “Normal School” class gather a
year
later in temporary quarters downtown while the first unit of the main
building
of the campus is under construction near the corner of Park and El
Cajon
boulevards.
|
1898
|
George Hill, one of the first stockholders in
the Santa Fe railroad system, dies at the age of eighty-eight. A
frequent winter resident of the Hotel Florence, his estate valued at
$139,341
includes one of the last undeveloped tracts in uptown.
|
1902
|
At his own expense, George Marston travels east
to hire a worthy landscape architect for the commission of designing
San Diego’s 1,400-acre park, known then as City Park. Two months later,
at
Marston’s invitation, Samuel Parsons, Jr., arrives in San Diego to
study
the parklands.
|
1903
|
Construction begins on
County Hospital (now UCSD Medical Center).
|
| 1904 |
County Hospital opens on
mesa overlooking Mission Valley. The 90 patients residing in
the previous county medical institution, the County Poor Farm in
Mission Valley are transferred on May 15th. A fourth floor is added in
1910 and a five-story east wind in 1926.
|
| Construction of the Panama Canal begins. |
George
White Marston, a leading businessman and community booster, hires
Irving Gill to build a residence in Crittenden’s Addition, just north
of City
Park. Gill designs an English cottage-style estate now open as a
historical
museum.
|
|
1905
|
Quince
Street
pedestrian bridge opens providing residents west of Maple Canyon
access to the
streetcar lines.
|
| 1906 |
William
Wesley Whitson purchases 40-acre parcel from the George Hill estate
for $115,000. |
| 1907 |
Whitson establishes the Hillcrest Company
and opens a sales offices at the corner of University and Fifth (the
present location of Union Bank). His sister-in-law, Laura Anderson, who
had recommended that he buy the land, names the subdivision
“Hillcrest.” Development of
Presidio Park begins as Marston, Spreckels, Scripps and other investors
begin buying property to preserve as the park.
|
The growing rabbit population in City Park
is taking its toll on all the new trees and plantings. George Marston,
at the city councils request, organizes a series of rabbit hunts to
cull the population.
|
|
1908
|
Florence Elementary School (at First and University avenues)
opens. |
1909
|
| G. Aubrey Davidson,
founder of the Southern Trust and Commerce Bank and President of the
San Diego Chamber of Commerce, proposes that San Diego should stage an
exposition in 1915 to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal. |
|
| 1910 |
The first bank in Hillcrest, University
Avenue Bank, opens.
|
| Self-taught architect Hazel
Wood Waterman designs a woman’s clubhouse at Sixth and Ivy for The
Wednesday Club. Detailed tiles reflect Waterman’s interest in
artisan elements while the simple light-conscious lines of the
structure reflect the influence of her mentor, Irving Gill. |
| As construction proceeds on Panama Canal,
boosters in San Diego initiate the renaming of City Park to honor Vasco
Nunez de Balboa, the first European to cross the Isthmus of Darien
and set eyes on the Pacific Ocean. |
|
1911
|
The Panama-California Exposition groundbreaking
ceremonies begin with a military mass on July 19. The Administration
Building is the first to go up, completed in March 1912.
|
| 1912 |
| San Diego city engineer (twice), and
later mayor (twice), Edwin Capp builds a suspension
footbridge at Spruce Street, linking residents of the western
regions of Bankers Hills with streetcar lines heading downtown. |
International Workers of
the World (“Wobblies”) protest downtown, drawing a crowd of nearly
5,000
people on March 10. The fight for “free speech” ends in May when Emma
Goldman
leaves town, and Ben Reitman is tarred and feathered.
|
Misses Lee and Teats hire Irving Gill
to design a group
of houses around a canyon bounded by Front and Albatross streets
south of Walnut. Gill places the
houses around a common garden with a central ‘boulevard’ leading
down
into the
canyon below the Spruce Street suspension bridge.
|
| William Hebbard and Carleton Winslow, Sr.
design All
Saints Episcopal Church at Sixth and Pennsylvania. |
|
| 1913 |
Hillcrest Theater (later named the Guild) becomes the first
movie house outside of downtown. (It goes dark in 1997, the same month
that the Park Theatre closes.) |
1914
|
| The
Panama Canal is completed. |
At the April 12 opening of the Cabrillo
Bridge Franklin D. Roosevelt (Assistant Secretary of the Navy)
accompanies
G. Aubrey Davidson and Mayor Charles F. O’Neall in the first automobile
to cross.
|
| With much less pomp, the city builds the
Georgia Street Bridge over streetcar
lines along the recently trenched University Avenue. The streetcar
service expands into a quickly developing North Park. |
| John D. Spreckels presents the Organ
Pavilion in Balboa Park to the people of San Diego. Spreckels also
hires Dr. Humphrey J. Stewart, a distinguished organist and composer,
to give daily concerts throughout 1915. These concerts continued, at
Spreckels’ expense, until
September 1, 1929. |
|
1915
|
| The Panama-California
Exposition opens on New Year’s Day. At midnight on New Year’s Eve,
President Woodrow Wilson presses a Western Union telegraph key in
Washington, D.C. which
turns on lights and touches off a display of fireworks to open the
Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park. Bertram Goodhue’s Spanish
Colonial architecture forever defines Balboa Park. |
Pacific Bell and Telephone
opens new switching center at Seventh and University. All San Diego
long distance calls are routed, by hand, through this building. The
building
will expand again in 1937 for the installation of mechanical switches
to
route calls for the increasingly popular dial phones.
|
|
1916
|
| The original Vermont Street Bridge opens.
The wooden structure remains in use until November 1978 and is
demolished in May 1979. |
| Unusually heavy rains in
January cause severe flooding in San Diego, washing out all but two of
the city’s 112 bridges. “Rainmaker” Charles Hatfield gets all the credit and the
blame, but never gets paid the $10,000 city fathers had promised him. Photo of washed-out bridge in Old Town. |
Dr. Harry Wegeforth brings the San Diego
Zoo into being when animals imported for the 1915 Panama-California
Exposition are quarantined and not allowed to leave. He’s reported to
have exclaimed to brother Paul, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had a
zoo.” He puts a notice in the newspaper, asking for support.
|
|
1919
|
St. Joseph’s Hospital surgery annex is erected
on the present site of Kinkos/Chipolte. The hospital covers several
acres of Hillcrest including Sixth to Eighth avenues north of
University. In the ’40s its moved across the street and the building
becomes
the new home for Victor and Ruth Schulman’s House of Heirlooms.
|
| 1921 |
Business owners unite to form the Hillcrest
Association. |
| 1922 |
Roosevelt Junior High School opens adjacent to the zoo. |
1924
|
The sisters of Mercy Hospital move to the
present location of Scripps Mercy north of Washington Street and sell
St. Joseph’s.
|
The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph
Company expands the Hillcrest central office to provide for an
additional 1200
subscribers. Forty million conductor-feet of cable are strung
throughout
the neighborhood.
|
George Marston, having acquired most of
Crittenden’s Addition, lays out a 74-lot subdivision which
becomes known as Marston Hills. Many of the residences built in
this new ‘suburban’ tract are patterned Medierranean Revival style
of the 1915 Exposition in Balboa Park.
|
|
| 1925
|
| Fox Egyptian Theatre
opens. (Later named Capri, then Park. It closes in 1997.) |
| Mission
Beach Amusement Center (now Belmont Park) opens on the Fourth of July.
The Giant Dipper roller coaster is a popular attraction. Photo
of opening
day at Belmont Park. |
| The Southern California
Counties Building burns down in November (just prior to the holding of
a Fireman’s Ball). This was one of the major 1915 Exposition buildings
in Balboa Park. It is replaced by the Natural History Museum. |
|
|
1926
|
| Temple Beth Israel is
constructed at Third and Laurel. Persons of all denominations
attend the ceremonies celebrating the setting of the cornerstone. |
| Grant A. Bush opens the
exotic, new Bush Egyptian Movie Theater on June 30 at 3812 Park
Boulevard, just south of University Avenue. The Egyptian Theater was
one of San Diego’s original luxury movie houses. Patrons entered past
huge columns in an open courtyard lobby. In 1954 the columns were
removed, and the enclosed lobby became Mondrian-modern as the
extraordinary building was remodeled in a three-month, $100,000 project
and renamed the Capri Theater. |
|
1927
|
| The Fine Arts Gallery in
Balboa Park (now the San Diego Museum of Art), designed by William
Templeton Johnson and funded by Appleton Bridges, is dedicated and
opens to the public. |
| El Cortez Hotel opens as
San Diego’s “finest” furnished apartment-hotel. |
|
1928
|
The Chicken Pie Shop opens at northeast
corner of Fifth and Robinson (moving to North Park in 1990).
|
Hillcrest Station of the
U.S. Postal Service opens.
|
| Lindbergh
Field, San Diego’s municipal airport, is dedicated. Photo of Lindbergh Field, 1935. |
Reynard Hills platted.
|
|
1929
|
George Marston hires William Templeton
Johnson to design the Junipero Serra Museum at Presidio Park. The
stunning white of the building on a gardened promontory is a well-known
landmark, but
the traditional design leads many to (wrongly) believe it is a restored
historical church.
|
Mission Cliffs Gardens and the Ostrich
Farm shut down. In 1942 the land is subdivided and developed as
residences.
|
|
| 1931
|
Wedding Bell Chapel (now riceJones) opens in the 3600 block
of Fifth Avenue. |
1936
|
In effort to relieve congestion
on Washington Avenue, the city extends University Avenue westward from
Front Street. A small canyon adjacent to Florence School is
filled and a one block northward jog graded. At Albatross, the
new road connects into Douglas which is hence renamed.
|
| 1940
|
The Hillcrest Women’s
Association donates the landmark sign at the corner of University and
Fifth avenues.
|
| Hoping to solve “one of
San Diego’s major traffic problems, the congestion at University and
Sixth
avenues” a 423-foot box-girder bridge is built to extend Washington
Street
over the Sixth Street Extension (now the 163 on/off ramps). The span
allows
east/west traffic to bypass the traffic jam due to north/south traffic.
The project is funded from state gasoline tax allocations to the city.
The following year the city approves widening Sixth Avenue north of
Upas
as part of overall program to relieve the “Hillcrest traffic bottleneck
at University Avenue.” |
|
1941
|
The first parking
meters
are installed in San Diego.
|
| 1946 |
Owners of Park Boulevard’s
Egyptian Court Margaret and Wilson A. (Bill) Pickney open an exotic
restaurant, The Garden of Allah, next door. In 1954, this
unconventional supper club was modernized into “The Flame” to
commemorate the fire that had gutted the couple’s previous building. |
1947
|
The Cabrillo Freeway (now Historic Highway 163)
opens. Then, as now, the corridor is one of the major automobile
connections between downtown San Diego and the growing housing
developments to the
north and east. Prior to the construction of I-8 through Mission Valley
in 1958, eastbound traffic would exit at Washington Avenue and follow
El
Cajon Boulevard (then US-80). The Cabrillo Freeway is spanned by
numerous
bridges, including the Cabrillo Bridge built for the 1915 Exposition.
The
freeway follows an extension of Pound Canyon and cuts through several
subdivisions
(including Crittendens, est. 1887 and Fletchers Addition, est. 1896)
and
required constructing crossings for the primary east/west routes:
Washington,
University and Robinson.
|
1949
|
| Bill Kingston moves The Whistle Stop from
downtown to Sixth Avenue. In 1975 it opens at 3834 Fourth Avenue (where
it remains today). Chief engineer and railroad buff Scott Rhodes who no
owns the store has worked here in 1979. |
Trolley service in Hillcrest ends as San
Diego shuts down the electric streetcars on April 23.
|
|
|
1951
|
Freeway construction begins in Mission Valley.
The initial section extends east from Cabrillo Freeway to the
recently completed Alvarado Canyon Freeway.
|
| 1953 |
Sears Roebuck and Company opens on the present site of the
Uptown District. It was razed in 1988. |
1955
|
The Golden Dragon above Jimmy
Wong’s Chinese restaurant is lit for the first time.
|
1956
|
El Cortez Hotel adds the worlds
first outside
glass hydraulic elevator, designed by C.J. Paderewski.
|
1957
|
Hillcrest celebrates the 50th anniversary of its
founding with a golden
remembrance of the “good old days.” Norm Robbins dresses up
as Wyatt Earp for
promotion of neighborhood businesses.
|
| 1958 |
Interstate Highway 8 is built through Mission Valley, following ancient Indian trails. |
1959
|
Parking meter rates double from
5 to 10 cents an hour.
|
| 1960 |
| Sprawl of shopping centers
in the newly accessible Mission Valley begins. Hillcrest merchants
suffer from increased competition and shoppers preference to go to the
latest American marketing invention: The Mall. |
| Al Davis opens the doors
to his furniture store at the corner of Herbert and University. Twenty
years later he adds Mattress World. |
|
1961
|
Bill and Mary Peccolo found the Blue Door
Bookstore on Fifth Avenue. After Bill’s death in 1987, she sells the
business to
Tom Stoup who runs the literary sanctuary until transferring ownership
to Patti DeYoung in 2000. The 39-year-old store closes the next year.
|
1963
|
After three years of
construction, the new $12.5 million, 11-story County Hospital opens. |
1968
|
Show Biz Supper Club opens (at the location of
Seven), and Clint Johnson introduces the first female impersonation
show to San Diego. Tourists from Mission Valley are bused to the club
for three shows a night. The stage goes dark in 1982.
|
1970
|
Members of the GLBT community begin to
establish residences, businesses and organizations within Hillcrest.
|
1972
|
City Council votes to
raise hourly parking meter rates from 75 cents to $1.
|
| San Diego is chosen as
the site for the Republican National Convention. In a last-minute
about-face, Republicans announce plans to move convention site to Miami
Beach. See
Dick run. The loss of the convention prompts Mayor Pete Wilson to
declare San Diego “America’s Finest City.” |
|
1973
|
The Center for Social Services (now called the
LGBT Center)
opens
in Golden Hill, it moves to Hillcrest in 1980.
|
1974
|
Protesting lack of human rights (and the city’s
refusal of a parade permit), 200 gays and lesbians march through the
streets of downtown for the first time. Some cover their heads with
paper bags
fearing reprisal. The first city-permitted parade is held the next year.
|
1975
|
City Council approves conversion
of Lewis and Montecito Streets to one-way traffic.
|
1976
|
Coral Tree Plaza, the first high-rise
residential tower near the heart of Hillcrest, is built in block three
of Crittenden’s Addition.
|
1978
|
| “Tower, we’re going down.
This is PSA. Mom, I love you.” One of the worst air crashes in U.S.
history occurs over North Park on September 25 when a Pacific Southwest
Airlines
(PSA) Boeing 737 approaching San Diego airport is struck in mid-air by
a
Cessna flown by a student pilot. All 135 people on the jet are killed
as
well as seven people on the ground and the two pilots in the Cessna.
Twenty-two
homes over a four-block area at Boundary and Dwight are damaged or
destroyed. |
| The Electric Building
(1915 Exposition’s Commerce and Industries Building, now Casa de
Balboa) burns down on February 22, destroyed by arson fire. Two
weeks later the world-famed Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park burns to
the ground in another arson fire on March 8. After a massive
fund-raising drive to rebuild it, a new, three-theater complex opens
four years later. |
|
1979
|
| Update launches its
first issue, reporting on a recent police raid of the Fourth Avenue
Club
and the subsequent founding of the Gay Alliance for Equal Rights. |
| The Wing Cafe, a feminist
restaurant-gallery-performance space on B Street in Golden Hill, opens.
In 1982 Kathy Najimy and Sue Palmer take over the entertainment. |
|
1983
|
| Joyce
Beers, secretary of the Hillcrest Association, leads a petition
drive urging city council to form the Hillcrest Business Improvement
District (BID). |
| Roger Hedgecock is
elected mayor. (He resigns in 1985 over a campaign fund-raising
scandal.) |
| Britain’s Queen Elizabeth
II unveils a bust of Shakespeare at the rebuilt Old Globe Theatre. |
|
| 1984 |
The Flame, an old supper
club on Park Blvd (named after a fire destroyed the first restaurant,
The Garden of Allah), reopens as a lesbian bar. It changes ownership
twenty years later, after being purchased by the owners of Numbers, a
watering hole across the street.
|
| The Hillcrest sign is
restored and relit. The celebration and streetfair held underneath
continued the next year as CityFest (after an initial cancellation). |
BID is formed in July. It
now oversees a portion of funds which are collected from all licensed
businesses within the area. The Hillcrest Business Association,
composed of local merchants and residents, controls the use of funds
which enable the promotion of community improvements within Hillcrest.
|
|
1985
|
| The HBA holds the first
“CityFest” in May (a two-day event). Over-zealous painters get carried
away
and cover Fifth Avenue with colorful slogans and pictures costing the
association $1,642 in clean-up expenses (from the city). |
| Mayor Roger Hedgecock
appoints Susan Jester as the first openly gay member for the Advisory
Board on Neighborhoods. |
|
1986
|
Maureen O’Connor is elected as San Diego’s
first woman mayor. In June she becomes the first elected official to
ride (and march) in the Lesbian & Gay Pride parade.
|
| 1987 |
Corvette Diner opens
|
| Far West Savings and Loan
Association restores the Security Commercial and Savings Bank at the
northeast corner of Fifth and University (now Rooster Gear). |
| Hillcrest activist Albert
Bell (with Jess
Jessop) is among
862 arrested in the largest act of civil disobedience on record during
the March on Washington. |
|
1989
|
After four years of fighting over custody
issues, attorney fees and property, Betty Broderick shoots
her former husband, Dan, and (his new wife) Linda in the bed of their
Marston Hills home. The sensationalism of the crime spawns two made-for-TV-movies.
|
| 1990 |
| The Quince Street
pedestrian bridge reopens after a major renovation thanks to activist
(and art teacher) Elinor Meadows. |
| The Uptown District
opens at the former Sears site, providing Hillcrest’s first taste of
mixed-use development. |
| A demographic swing
towards mods,
punks and yuppies raises concerns that the charm of Hillcrest is
being replaced by trendy corporate capitalism. |
|
| 1991 |
Village Hillcrest opens with a large underground parking lot
and a mixed-use of the buildings. |
| 1992 |
Hillcrest
Association begins Tues Nite Out promotion. |
| 1993 |
| The
GAP
moves into the building on southwest corner of Fifth and University
once owned by Wyatt Earp. |
| Christine
Kehoe is elected as our representative to the SD City Council (the
first openly gay/lesbian official in San Diego). |
|
| 1994 |
| A new Vermont Street
pedestrian bridge is completed. This span featuring public art costs
$1.2 million. |
| Hillcrest’s second
Starbucks (and San Diego’s 14th) opens at the former site of the
Chicken Pie Shop. The building is refurbished with art deco spires and
neon. |
| Former Mayor Roger Hedgecock
heads a group of protesters, “The Normal People,” wanting to march in
the Pride parade. The court denies the action. |
|
1995
|
Olympic swimmer and gold medal winner Greg Louganis is
selected Grand Marshal of the San Diego Lesbian & Gay Pride parade.
|
1996
|
| The City Council honors
the HBA
with a proclamation proclaiming October 24 as “Hillcrest Association
Day” in San Diego. |
| Hillcrest Business
Association votes to underwrite the cost of a security patrol for the
neighborhood. |
|
| 1997 |
| Our farmers market opens
on Sunday mornings at the DMV lot (Lincoln and Normal) as a project of
the HBA. |
After a five-year wait,
sidewalks along Fifth Avenue between Robinson and University are
replaced.
Main goal: save the 35-year-old ficus trees.
|
| Hillcrest resident Andrew
Cunanan begins a summer cross-country killing spree. Five men
including designer Gianni Versace
are murdered before Cunanan takes his own life on a Florida houseboat. |
|
1998
|
| Police Chief Jerry
Sanders, (next year’s chief) David Bejarano, Sheriff Bill Kolender and
City Manager Mike Uberuaga join a large contingent of uniformed
officers in this year’s LGBT Pride parade through Hillcrest. |
| Julia
Kate Morgan, a transsexual woman losing hope of a successful
transition, carries a gun to her appointment with Dr. Rita Powers at
the Cognitive
Therapy Institute. What happens next is unclear
but
the result is the tragic deaths of both Morgan and Powers. |
|
| 1999 |
Linda Churchill paints a mural depicting a yesteryear
hardware store at the corner of Tenth and University avenues. |
| 2000 |
Promoting “neighborhoods first” Toni
Atkins is elected as our District 3 council representative to the
city. |
2001
|
| Mercy Gardens (formerly
the Sisters of Mercy Convent which housed nuns from 1926-1990) is
remodeled for use by the HIV-positive community. |
| Local public television
station, KPBS, airs the documentary “Searching for San Diego —
Hillcrest.”
HBA President Hulda “Sissy” Isham is one of many featured individuals. |
|
2002
|
| The 14th Annual Open Air
Book Fair moves from Normal Heights to Hillcrest’s Fifth Avenue,
drawing about 5,000 literary enthusiasts. |
| Hillcrest resident Judge Bonnie
Dumanis is
elected as San Diego District Attorney. She is the highest ranking,
openly lesbian, law enforcement officer in the nation. |
|
2003
|
The former FBI building (later the Water
Authority building) at the corner of Fifth and Spruce is renovated and
sold as high-end lofts.
|
| 2004 |
| A fire inside the Cabrillo
Bridge columns causes concern, but the structure’s integrity remains. |
| The Hillcrest
History Guild is formed by Ann Garwood and Nancy Moors. A virtual
museum is
created on the Internet. |
|
| 2005 |
First year in city history that we had four
months with at least four inches of precipitation. By mid-May the
rainfall at Lindbergh Field totaled 22.47" making it the third wettest
season since 1850. |
| 2006 |
| The Hillcrest Clean T.E.A.M. commits to
sweep the neighborhood on each First and Third Sunday throughout the
year. (They continue.) |
| On September 13 the City
Council follows Toni Atkins lead and approves the 140-foot mixed use
project at 301 University by 7-1. (Donna Fyre was the lone vote of
dissent.) |
|
| 2007 |
Hillcrest celebrates our first
100 years as residents form the Hillcrest Town Council
giving a voice to renters and
homeowners. They meet the 2nd Tuesday of each month at the Joyce Beers
Community Center. |
| 2008 |
| An Interim Height Ordinance
is approved by the City Council on July 8th followed by a neighborhood
celebration at Joyce Beers Community Center. |
| Todd Gloria is elected to
the City Council to represent Hillcrest and all of District 3. |
|
| 2009 |
Benjamin “Ben” Nicholls takes
over at the helm of the Hillcrest Business Improvement
Association
on January 5th becoming their fourth executive director. (Beers, Kehoe
& Simon were predecessors.)
|
